Research of the Environmental Policy group
The globalization of environmental problems is more than ever shaping our world. Production and consumption practices around the world affect climate change, biodiversity loss and natural resource depletion. Learn how our research at the Environmental Policy group contributes to tackling these problems.
Research themes, concepts & contexts
Our research is organised around five research themes—Energy, Food, Circularity, Biodiversity, and Climate—; four key research concepts—Mobilities, Practices, Regimes, and Technologies—; and three research contexts—Terrestrial, Marine, Atmospheric.
Research themes
Circularity
Our circularity research contributes to understanding circularity transformations focussing on how circular social practices emerge and scale up, and with what socio-environmental implications.
Biodiversity
Global efforts to combat biodiversity loss reflect a plurality of social and political approaches to protecting, rebuilding, rewilding, and caring for natures in the 21st Century. Our research examines their implications for governing human-nature relations in the Anthropocene.
Food
Food, an essential part of everyday life, involves critical sustainability challenges from production through to processing, trade, consumption and waste. Our research ranges from local practices to global value chains, involving critical analysis with the purpose of driving positive change.
Climate
Climate change is one of the primary challenges of our time. Our research focuses on architectures, networks, and technologies of present and future climate governance, taking a transformative perspective that emphasizes questions of equity and effectiveness.
Energy
Transitions towards a renewable energy system bring new roles for users, communities and providers, creating challenges for inclusive and effective governance. Our research asks how transitions towards sustainable energy can be enabled locally and internationally.
Research concepts
Regimes
We examine the connections and contradictions in current environmental regime-making.
Practices
We focus on social practices, as opposed to structures or individuals, to study sustainability transformations and environmental governance.
Technologies
We examine how technologies, as part of socio-material practices and regimes, mediate and influence how we interpret and govern environmental challenges.
Mobilities
We examine the multiple and uneven relations between environmental mobilities and governance.
Research contexts
Terrestrial
The terrestrial environment spans urban and rural areas.
Marine
The marine environment encompasses seas and oceans and coastal regions.
Atmospheric
The atmospheric environment encompasses the earth-space interface